


Eleven Pairs Of Shoes

by Kami



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Era: 12:00, Gen, Inspiration: Cinderella, Inspiration: HaSeul (Photobook), Inspiration: Let Me In (MV), Inspiration: Voice (Princess Dress Version), Inspiration: Why Not? (MV), Inspiration: Why Not? (Teaser Images), It Always Comes Back To Iceland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28669371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kami/pseuds/Kami
Summary: With just a pair of Converses and a princess frock, a girl can take on the world.And eleven girls could take on another world, if that's what it takes to become complete.
Kudos: 8





	Eleven Pairs Of Shoes

"These shoes aren't even comfortable," YeoJin spoke up. It was approximately the eleventh time she had pointed this out.

Kim Lip grimaced and tugged on the knot of her hair again, shuffling her feet. "It is true. _Painfully_ so."

"But they are fashionable," ViVi reminded them. "It is never only about _what_ you do. The style in which you do it counts too."

"Most importantly," said JinSoul, "we can actually run in them!"

"Anyway," Choerry spoke up, "do you know what else is uncomfortable? Crossing dimensions. But even having yourself turned inside out and then dumped in a big heap in a completely different world can turn out okay, if you keep up a positive attitude."

"Um..." Yves put her hands up to rake them through her own hair. "Was there a message in that? Because all I heard was _we're all doomed_."

"We don't even know if he will help us," said Go Won, staring into the portal ahead of them. The same blue as her hair at present, its oval shape was pitted at each side to suggest the wings of a butterfly. Or perhaps, with the way it roared and swirled at the edges, the twists in a thousand strips of paper joined at the ends.

HeeJin puffed her cheeks out at it like she was already seconds away from the run into its depths. "We have no choice. This is the only thing we've got at this point... and we were always going to do _something_ , right?"

Stare-faced, HyunJin started off the round of nodding.

"It'll be an adventure!" Chuu spoke up suddenly, her voice a little shakier than usual but her smile bright. "We're going to do this together, as a team, and it's going to matter because of that."

"So when it all goes wrong, we'll still be together," JinSoul added.

"You know," said Olivia Hye, "there's still the possibility for us all to just... go to bed."

" _Hyejoo_ ," said Yves.

"I'll make sure I take my shoes off before I get in," she added. "Or I could stick my feet off the edge of the bed." The last word was cut off by a yawn. "Just... please, I am _so_ tired."

When the others moved, she stepped into her place at the end of the line. There was never any doubt that she would. Any one of them would go to any place they had to for this chance.

The portal swelled as they moved closer, its indistinct opening now big enough for them to step through in single file. They joined hands, HyunJin and YeoJin uneasy in their grip on one another, HeeJin graciously pretending not to see as she took the lead.

She put her hand in front of her, reaching towards the portal, and as her fingertips made contact with the dreamy white smoke issuing from its centre, she disappeared. HyunJin started back at that, trying to retreat—but then she was gone as well, and so it was with each of them in the sequence having only a moment to think better of this whole adventure before it swallowed them up.

Then there was just the rumbling of the portal in an otherwise silent field, and a second later it folded in on itself and scattered butterflies from the point where it last existed.

  
  
  
  


They stared up the vast column of red velvet steps, breathing eleven little clouds of frosty air.

"It is a _very_ good thing we chose these shoes," Yves observed. "Someone was bound to come down on one of those, the statistics are not on our side."

They started their ascent, their usual ordering coming apart somewhat, but all of them huddled as close together as their starched skirts would allow, shivering from nerves and cold. There were other attendees climbing the steps who eyed them curiously.

"This isn't going to work," Kim Lip exploded finally. "We need to blend in."

Go Won cleared her throat. "I have hair the colour of bubble gum."

"I mean, we at least need to look like we didn't come here all together. Twos and threes at the most. And we send someone ahead as a scout."

Ten heads turned towards the centre of the group. "What?" said YeoJin. "Why _me_?"

"There are a few of us who have the confidence to pull it off," said HeeJin. "And we need ViVi to seal the deal at the end, so..."

YeoJin shrugged, and skipped ahead of the rest of them.

"She looks just like a child heading to school," Go Won observed. "Who was responsible for her styling?"

Choerry clasped her hands together. "Yes! She's so pretty."

They didn't manage to break their group up any more than that until, about halfway up, YeoJin turned back to them and gestured with wide eyes.

There he was at the top of the steps, the little golden-haired prince with troubled eyes. He was turning one way and then another to greet his guests as they smilingly bowed their way past him into the tall building beyond, though he offered no smiles in return. As each of the remaining ten recognised him they finally scattered properly, ducking between other guests until only YeoJin and ViVi walked directly towards him. As YeoJin drew near, ViVi studied him over her head, her eyes gradually changing as she watched. But by the time his eyes flicked in her direction, she had slipped away into the stream of arrivals too shy to be directly seen.

YeoJin forged her own path, up the centre of the staircase in a direct line with him. She stopped right in front of him, and said, "Hello!" in a voice that sent a little flock of doves napping on the mostly-darkened eaves of the building fluttering away in panic.

He studied her, making a point of not missing the shortened line of her skirt, her elfin hair. "Isn't it too late for you to be out?"

"I'm small for my age," YeoJin said. "Shall we dance?"

The prince's eyes grew cold, but YeoJin just shivered a little and shrugged her shoulders clad in puffed sleeves, otherwise standing her ground.

"It is usually the prerogative of a prince to select his dance partners," he said finally.

"Okay," YeoJin said, and extended her hand. "Select me."

She didn't flinch again as his stare intensified, so he took her hand, tucked it around his forearm, and led her into the ballroom. As he took to the middle of the floor with her, everyone else who had been dawdling uneasily on the steps for their own reasons made their entrance in a hurry, and there was a lot of shuffling of evening dress fabric as they all found partners or a legitimate excuse to not have one.

He took a careful hold of YeoJin and began to direct her as the dance dictated. She was silent as she perfectly executed the moves of the dance like she didn't even need his guidance, her eyes unmoving, drilling into him.

"You have a lot of confidence, for your size," he remarked as the music swelled and she did not speak.

"I know how to ask for what I want," YeoJin agreed. "And to refuse what I don't." She squinted at him. "So don't get any ideas."

" _Ideas_ are the last thing I want to have any of," he assured her, and when the dance was concluded and he invited her to stay for a second, she accepted calmly. "That's exactly why you suit me as a dance partner," he said. "Nothing about you makes you a plausible romantic partner."

"Well I'm glad we got _that_ out of the way early," YeoJin said.

She kept looking over her shoulder during the second dance, first one way and then the other.

"Are you waiting for someone else?" the prince asked.

"Nobody," said YeoJin at once, which made him squint at her with severe suspicion, but she stared back at him, unblinking, until he relented and relaxed back into the dance again.

When the music briefly gave way to laughing, clapping, chatter and activity, YeoJin could not hide her twitchiness.

"You _are_ anticipating a new partner," the prince accused.

"No!" she protested. "But I did think, since we have now danced two whole songs together, that _someone might show up wanting to cut in_."

The orchestra started out the next song by striking the first note wrong. Almost the entire hall of dancers had turned to them as YeoJin's last words sent the stained-glass windows trembling... and then a scowling princess with dark hair and eyes and an outrageously pink frock swept through two longer dresses like they were a curtain, leaving exclamations in her wake, and stopped in front of the prince.

She hunched in a manner quite opposite to a curtsey, and growled, "May I cut in?"

  
  
  
  


After enduring an entire song quaking every time he shifted his grip on the angry princess in case it was the last, the prince was too relieved to have a cute cheerful girl to dance with to ask many questions. Anyway, it was difficult to get a word in. There seemed to be rather a lot of details in the ceiling of his ballroom she wished to offer enthusiastic commentary on that he had never even noticed, obviously. Who could possibly care to pay such close attention to a ceiling?

Then another girl arrived to replace her who looked a perfect princess, startling hair colour aside, but as soon as he dared comment that it was peculiar to have so many lovely young women approaching _him_ , she said, "Is it unexpected for women to be friendly to you, then? I wonder how that could be?" in the sweetest voice that left him blinking at how thoroughly she had eviscerated him.

She backed away as soon as the music was over, smiling and wafting her hand in a perfect royal wave, and a tall girl with grave and beautiful eyes stepped into the space in front of him so that he was obliged to dance with her. She stared at him in a silence he didn't dare break for the first half of the dance, and then almost spoke over the top of herself for the whole of the second half, delivering an extended review of the refreshments table.

"Did she really manage to sample all of those?" he said to himself as the music stopped and she turned straight around and stalked away without a word.

"Oh, yes." The girl who had appeared in front of him without warning was another perfect princess in her blue dress, but also looked like she would have been perfect on horseback, or sitting by the fire, laughing and surrounded by puppies. The kind of girl a mother hopes her son can find, even though she knows his chances of actually securing her are minimal. "If she tells you something about food consumption, you should believe her. Absolutely." Her eyes were soft as she spoke, but she wasn't really looking at him.

"Thank you for clearing that up." The prince stared after her as she strode away. Perhaps that one was out of his reach for reasons other than his own failings.

The next girl to accost him was cuter than he had ever imagined a grown woman could be, but somehow gave off more of a fairy godmother vibe and spent most of their dance together berating him for moving his hands inappropriately with his former partners—he had certainly _not_ —and advising him to behave better in future, _or else_.

"Tonight is turning out to be far less relaxing than I had hoped," he confided in his partner after her, a stunning blonde with a glamorous updo.

"Tell me about it," she commiserated. "Honestly I wouldn't be here tonight at all if—well. We all have our reasons."

The prince squinted at her with suspicion, but the music was once again over too quickly, a girl with wild dark curls stepping in to take the perfectly elegant princess's place.

Perfectly—He happened to glimpse the departing blonde's feet as she elbowed her way past other shuffling couples like someone who had somewhere far more important to go than the refreshments table.

Well. The overbright and outmoded dresses were enough of a sign that something was not right, but those shoes did not even resemble anything he'd seen in his country before. They were unflattering to a female foot and appeared to do little to enhance her overall silhouette either, though they were probably more straightforward to walk in than traditional ball shoes.

On some impulse he tried to check if his new partner was wearing similar footwear, but he got lost in the bewildering shapes of her gown, which seemed almost to be designed after particularly daring styles of swimwear he'd seen.

"My face is not down there, sir," she snapped, and he was startled back up without answering his question. After that uneasy beginning she was very pleasant, at least, and talked warmly until their dance was over about several topics he did not understand in the slightest.

"I told them we should have just gone with the black dresses," she muttered as a girl with shorter hair and a gripping gaze strode in to fill the void. Her dainty tiara made it all the more jarring when she took a firm hold of him and started to try to lead in the dance, before shifting quickly into the receptive role, muttering something about forgetting herself sometimes.

What was it with all the sapphic princesses at tonight's event?

She bowed after the song was done before backing away, almost bowling over the next girl to approach. This one moved with gentle steps that made the bounce of her sleek orange hair even more startling to him, and there was something about the way that she looked into his eyes that made his heart ache without warning. He had a strange sense of knowing her from her gaze, though he was certain they had never met before.

She quickly dropped her eyes after their initial exchange of greetings and seemed to be almost lost in her own world as she focused on the steps of the dance. So lost, he was provoked to reach out to her.

"Have you enjoyed your time here?"

"I am enjoying myself now," she responded, her voice both soft and gentle, both like and unlike her colleague—that was, the girl with a soft voice and loud hair he had danced with earlier.

He tried to push aside his flattered feelings to focus on the idea he'd just discarded like there was nothing to it... when, obviously, there was a lot to it. This string of confident women he'd never seen before who had all come to tonight's ball? It was impossible that it should be a coincidence.

But he'd already learned that *coincidence* was just another word for a malicious event perpetuated intentionally by others, hadn't he?

And when he started thinking along those lines, the memories started flashing back. The snow, the sounds of his own bootsteps crunching through the thin ice...

The matching sound of her running behind him. The whistle of the weapon, the way it had felt to lie with the hard cold ground soaking into his back, staring up as she looked down on him with as little emotion as if he were truly dead...

He'd thought then that seeing her wearing almost his own face had been a result of his confusion. And after, too. Until this orange-haired girl.

She shifted in his grasp as if she knew his thoughts dwelled on her, but now he knew where she was from, he knew he needed to look past her. To see what was really happening.

When he scanned the distant edges of the ballroom, he was able to pick out all of the other young women he'd danced with in turn, each situated underneath one of the stained-glass windows. Sentries. They had been keeping him occupied with a dance each so they could seize the advantage across the entire ballroom.

He started counting in his head. _One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten... _Number eleven was in front of him, vainly trying to raise her height to block his view of what he had already seen.__

__And number twelve..._ _

__He didn't wait around thinking about it. He drew back from his partner and ran for the doors, wincing as he pushed past his guests, but there was no time for manners. He was not going to let them corner him and then just... let her in._ _

__They were slow to react, to start running after him. They had not expected him to realise so soon... but on some level, he'd realised from the start, hadn't he? He'd known these young women in a way that didn't make any sense when he'd never _seen_ them before._ _

__But he hadn't been able to bring himself to think of the one he had seen before until he sensed he was in the space where she should have been._ _

__As he fled down the staircase, taking the steps three or four at a time, he heard the clatter of them all coming together on the top step. Once he had made it all the way down he glanced behind at the bottom step and froze: the beautiful one with the feline stare was only a few strides from capturing him._ _

__Then she caught her heel on a bit of ice stuck to a step and one of those sturdy running shoes flipped right off, causing her to stop where the incident had occurred, laughing._ _

__The prince did not waste this opportunity. He kept running, dodging between the assembled parked carriages the way he had weaved an escape past their occupants minutes earlier, out into the snow in his dancing shoes. They would not be able to pursue him so quickly out there._ _

__But even he started to flag as the icy air filled his lungs, though he had grown up accustomed to these harsh conditions. He slowed to a shaky walk not long after the eleven pursuers dropped off..._ _

__And when he paused to look behind once more, he saw that one had not dropped off. The orange-haired girl with the grieving eyes continued, more slowly than before but her progress steady. She seemed affected by the freezing conditions, but not stalled as he had expected. As he was._ _

__The prince hunched over and took deep breaths, though he already knew he could not warm his body enough to consider running again. She would have him in moments._ _

__She stopped a few steps short of touching him, and studied his face like there was an infinity of knowledge to be found there. In her gaze he found just one truth he had not been willing to look directly at until he was cornered: there was something about him that was familiar and meaningful to these women, as well._ _

__"What do you want from me?" he asked._ _

__"We need your help," said the orange-haired princess. "You are the last option we have for a way to reach her."_ _

__He already knew, of course. He had wanted to force her to say it, hoping she would not dare._ _

__"I know we have no right to ask," she added. "But that does not eliminate our need."_ _

__The other ten had caught up to the two of them and clustered a few steps behind the orange-haired one. The feline girl hopped and then stood on one foot, her bare one raised elegantly in the air._ _

__They would all have a chance to hear his outrage. "She could have killed me!"_ _

__"Yes," said the assertive one who had danced with him before the orange-haired girl. "But she was confused, afraid, and even if that were not the case, we would do whatever it took to get her back."_ _

__The little loud one raised her voice far above all other sounds. "Because she is ours, and we are hers."_ _

__"Please help us," said the orange-haired girl. "We need to bring her home. No matter what."_ _

__The feline girl took another hop forward, extending her hand to him. Startled, he took a few crunching steps backwards, restoring the distance between them. She did not move closer again._ _

__He stared at that hand and started to wonder: was there another group somewhere, maybe eleven or maybe more or less, with an empty space where he fitted? An unexpected answer to that question he had asked himself all his life? Was it really only a coincidence that he had first become caught up with the beautiful troubled girl from another world, and now the rest of them?_ _

__No matter what he focused on, he saw all eleven of them arranged before him, their eyes full of hope for something they could surely hold no realistic hope for._ _

__Princes who throw lavish balls to find the most perfect of princesses know one thing: the tremendous sadness of that empty space. The escalating heroics it demands the longer it persists._ _

__The prince sighed, and stepped back into the place he had fled before, where they needed him._ _

__He held his hand out to the girl who had left her shoe behind, and both of hers gently closed around it._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this during an intense bout of missing HaSeul early in Why Not? promotions, but it didn't feel right to publish while her continued participation in LOONA promotions was less certain. Right now fic is proving better than therapy as we wait to see if our suspicions will be confirmed... ~~please BBC I'm dying here.~~
> 
> In true LOONA fashion, I think I've raised more questions here than I ever intend to answer. I just wanted to think fluffy thoughts about them all doing the most to be together as 12, really.
> 
> The princess outfits hinted at were featured in [a KCON:TACT performance of Voice you can view here at the time this is being written](https://vimeo.com/472219760). I originally had them wearing the outfits from 12:00 A version, but switched because the mental image of grumpy pink princess Olivia was too funny to resist.


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